African Safari

There are so many excellent safari outfitters. You can go on a set itinerary with a group tour, or you can work with a company that will put together a customized itinerary for you.

In the first category, OAT (https://www.oattravel.com/) is a company you should consider. They have six safari itineraries:

• Kenya & Tanzania Safari: Masai Mara to the Serengeti
• Safari Serengeti: Tanzania Lodge & Tented Safari
• South Africa & Namibia: Cape Town’s Winelands to the Skeleton Coast
• Southern Africa Discovery: Victoria Falls, Kruger Safari & the Cape Peninsula
• Uganda & Rwanda: Mountain Gorillas, Chimpanzees & the Nile
• Ultimate Africa: Botswana, Zambia & Zimbabwe Safari

If you prefer a custom itinerary, I went last year with Wilderness (https://www.wildernessdestinations.com/). They were beyond extraordinary, both in helping put together the plan and with the on-the-ground operations.

One thing to consider is whether you want to go to private reserves or public. Wilderness owns their own camps. This was amazing, because when you're in a public park and one guide finds a lion, suddenly 20 or 30 vehicles will all show up. (We did one safari drive in a public reserve, separate from the Wilderness tour, and while it was still good, there was definitely a difference.) In a private reserve, you and maybe one other vehicle have it all to yourselves. (Of course you will pay more for that kind of experience.)

Do some research on what it is you are most interested in and where and what time of year you are going to have the best experiences. Maybe read the OAT itineraries for ideas. And then set up a call with Wilderness and one or two other companies and see what they offer and determine the costs, and you'll eventually be able to make an educated decision about what's the best option for you.

Our group of four, myself, wife, son and friend did a great safari in Kenya and Tanzania about four years ago.
It was in early August, during the Great Migration of the thousands of Wildebeasts from Tanzania north into Kenya.

Our safari tour company was Good Earth Tours. We had an experienced guide/driver in our spacious off road vehicle that had a pop up roof, so when stopped, we could stand up and take great photos. We had a separate guide for each country.
Our guide had a radio and communicated with others to find the wildlife and WOW did we see the wildlife.
Our safari stared in Nairobi and ended in Arusha, Tanzania and was about 11 day total. About 2/3 of our safari was in Tanzania.

I compared prices for safaris with several companies and our safari ran about $4,200 pp, airfare was not included.
The only safari that I found that was cheaper was one where you camped outside and had to bring your own sleeping bag. Some safaris cost more than double that. Recommend doing research and compare what you get for $$. NO way can you do a safari on your own, need to book a tour.

Our lodgings were top flight, including some hotels, and lodges that was double tented (on a slab), with a spacious bath and sleeping quarters. You could hear the Zebras and Wildebeests outside. You called security in the morning to escort you to the restaurant for breakfast.

My Son and his friend had previously been on safaris in S. Africa and Zimbabue and they said that our safari was clearly the best.

Well, I guess it all depends on where you want to go for your safari. You might want to read through this report.
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/diy-south-african-safaris

She inspired me…..

My husband and I were just talking about our African safari, and that in National Parks in South Africa, we’d seen a few people driving their own SUV’s, but without trained guides who can spot animal tracks, and are connected to other guides by radio to report where someone had just spotted rhinos or lions, there’s no way they could have as rich an experience. Then there’s safety - how close can you get to an elephant, and if you’re sleeping in a tent instead of a purpose-built tourist compound, that’s incredibly dangerous. Independent travel for a safari is, apparently, an option for a few people, but they can’t possibly be getting as fulfilling an experience as those who spend the money for a guided safari.

We were on an OAT safari in 2022. We’re not keen group travelers, but OAT groups are never larger than 16, and the experienced staff kept us safe, and we sure saw a lot! In South Africa in April, we signed up for the Botswana/Okavango delta pre-trip add-on, and nobody else signed up, so we started with a private pre-trip. I have a 2-minute video of a roaring lion who’d just finished stuffing itself with warthog. It was maybe only 20 feet from our Land Cruiser, too full to get up and cause any danger. Mokoro canoe cruise, with water lillies, hippos, and a crocodile all around. Botswana was the true high point of that trip. Then with the group, South Africa and Zimbabwe. At the end, we did Cape Town and the Garden Route on our own (hiring a private guide for two of those days), rather that OAT’s post-trip Cape Town add-on with most of the group. It was, overall, a good value.

Gorilla safaris in Uganda have a really high price. Kenya and the annual Great Migration seem to be popular, but I’m glad with what we saw and did. We did a second trip with OAT two years ago, to Viêt Nam, and that single guide made it very underwhelming, but the African guides on the OAT safari were outstanding.

If you also go to Cape Town, a metropolitan city, independent travel is more of an option. Two of our days there, we hired Chris Hannival (Hannival’s Tours), for a personalized tour in the city, and a driving trip to Table Mountain, Cape of Good Hope, and penguins at Boulders Beach. We stayed at Parker Cottage B&B. Have seafood at Miller’s Thumb.

We used the professionals at Travel Beyond to plan our safari. We had an initial phone consultation during which time, we described the type of trip that we desired. They asked questions to clarify things. Because of their experience, they provided us with other things to consider when thinking about a safari. The consultant's next step was to provide us with a proposal. We then worked with them to tweak it before deciding on a final itinerary. We ended up with the trip of a lifetime! https://travelbeyond.com/

Cyn, I assume you were issuing those warnings in response to my link of Ruth’s report. I fully support what you are saying for an American who flies in, rents a car, and heads out for Krueger on their own - maybe with a tent in tow. No way would I do that nor think it was worth my money. I wouldn’t advise it - but, nevertheless, people do it.

However that is not the only option other than taking a tour or using a travel planner. It’s an extreme, just like a $10,000/night trip would be an extreme in the opposite direction (although it exists). I agree that a tour company or travel planner makes planning a lot easier and in some countries is most likely essential. They may be generally good value, even in places like South Africa where it’s not essential. They would be well set to include variety of countries and plan for longer trips.

But I think you and I have a different definition of independent travel in this case. I am in process of planning my own trip independently. For me that means choosing my own airfare and my own routing of such that works with my extended travel; choosing my own lodges (there are many price points and I am splurging on one of my locations where I have my own private vehicle and guide for the duration of two day stay - somehow that does not sound less fulfilling); deciding to fly to the lodge locations as opposed to being on a bus; and deciding myself how many nights I will stay where. The lodges have trained professional guides and often smaller vehicles and a limit as to how many vehicles can be at one sighting. It’s the same thing you get if you are on a tour that booked you into the same lodges or if a travel planner made your reservations for you, instead of making them yourself. Choosing a lodge is a bit like everyone here who ask about hotels all over Europe. Priorities can vary and options exist.

I view it just as I did my trip to Jordan - I planned it, booked my hotels, chose how long I wanted to stay at each - and hired someone to get me from place to place. Just because I didn’t take a tour, or hire a tour planner didn’t mean I slept in a tent or tried to ride a camel on my own. (Well, ok, I slept in a tent at Wadi Rum - but it had air con and a bathroom and I planned that.)

So it’s absolutely possible to plan your own travel in some cases, even if in other cases it’s not. And just because you plan it yourself does not mean you are going without a safari guide at any point or have a less fulfilling trip. There ARE scenarios like what you described, but to say that is the only other option is not true. Just like with all travel everywhere, there are experiences all along a sliding scale.

But it IS hard to decide where you want to go! Africa has a lot of options. I wouldn’t be trying to plan gorilla hiking on my own! However deciding where you want to go is something someone else can’t do for you. They can only facilitate after you decide. Letting someone else decide that for me is where I draw my line.

TTM, I hadn’t seen your link with Ruth’s post, so it was in no way directed at your remarks. I’d started my reply before your post, and it took me so long to compose it that it posted long after you’d made your first reply. I see that, yes, one can pick and choose lodging options and duration. But the key with a safari is having a guide when you’re out in the wilderness, which you arranged.

Our first camp, in Botswana, had an electric fence to keep elephants from crashing in. They’d apparently had lots of issues over time, and they said the added electrical approach had made a difference, so that repairs to the camp infrastructure weren’t a constant necessity. They still had to patch small parts of the fencing from time to time. So sounded like encroaching elephants were still being closely monitored, and guest safety was key. Even in a protective enclosure, we went to sleep every night to the sound of snorting hippos, in nearby water.

Later, in Zimbabwe, we were staying at the Elephant’s Eye camp (yes, for which OAT had done all the research and arrangements for us). It wasn’t fenced in, but the rooms/cabins were all on sturdy stilts (as high as an elephant’s eye), and pachyderms regularly came by in the afternoon to drink out of the non-chlorinated swimming pool - a reliable watering hole! One morning, we got up to go to the breakfast hut and the ground was all dug up in places, and several trees had been knocked over. Male elephants were in seasonal “must” throughout southern Africa, brimming with raging hormones, and were putting on macho elephant displays overnight. I never heard a thing during the night, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be in a tent or a rental SUV while things were getting torn up. I think we were lucky that the stilts on our cabin didn’t get in the way of an elephant overdosing on testosterone!

At one camp, in Kruger National Park in South Africa, one one of the guides had to escort everyone from their hut to the dinner cabin with a shotgun, because of problems in the past. Never came across any rampaging critter, but it was good to have additional protection. Our main guide said that at the same camp on an earlier safari, he’d been heading to dinner, and an elephant showed up, blocking his path. He had to wait a long time to get to dinner, while other guides were laughing at his predicament. Safaris are an incredible experience, but wild animals have to be taken seriously, and a professional, certified guide is an absolute necessity.

Thanks for explaining, Cyn!

I don’t camp anywhere, so an African safari on my own sure wouldn’t be where I would start. 🤣

one one of the guides had to escort everyone from their hut to the dinner cabin with a shotgun

From what I read, this is not unusual for lodges where animals from Krueger can roam freely. Which is the best kind of place. I have done no research on other countries (well, except for the Great Migration).

We talked to people in cars driving in Chobe National Park (Botswana) who were literally camping in small tents, on their own. A couple of our camps had individual “tents,” but these were heavy canvas on frames, with running water and electricity. When I think of a tent, and it’s what I believe these do-it-yourself safari people were using, is a lightweight backpacking tent. That’s what you use in the backcountry in Colorado (and we have mountain lions and bears, but not prides of lions or herds of elephants), although in Africa, I couldn’t imagine risking it with that kind of tent. They were definitely on an extreme end of the spectrum, and I’m guessing the were trying to do it on the cheap, with no guide and little awareness of the potential dangers at night. And you don’t want to pitch a tent where there are Army Ants, which our guide showed us one day.

BTW, OAT isn’t doing the exact itinerary that we did in 2022, forever reason. Their Ultimate Africa trip is the closest thing to what we did, but it’s not the same.

We’ve done what I consider “independent” travel on most of our trips to Europe, booking lodging, managing transportation, and doing the vast majority of sightseeing - although with one or more guidebooks, and so maybe that doesn’t even count as “independent” - LOL!

Guided trips, for all or a big part of the trip, have been to less-developed and/or rougher environments - Iceland, Morocco/Sahara, Southern Africa, Viêt Nam/Cambodia.

I do think we have to be careful, though, in presenting independent travel as only that extreme. You can independently pick your place to stay based on whatever amenities are important, deal directly with a lodge just as you would with a hotel, and you can travel at the same level as a tour would (if desired) - doing all the planning and communicating yourself, as many of us do in Europe. You can buy your own flights to and from camps, arrange for pick up and return, request the extra experiences you want - all independently. If you want. At least in South Africa - no idea about Botswana & elsewhere. Once you start researching lodges, you see that along with lodging and food, they provide guides and game drives in the per night cost. That’s not an extra you have to opt for.

But it’s a lot to figure out. Like Europe for beginners. So I’m not saying people should do that over hiring someone to plan for them or over taking a tour. Just saying it IS possible in the area I have researched to do it yourself and travel well.

Edit: and agreed there are places I am currently not knowledgeable enough about and may not want to spend the time researching or figuring out logistics. So I have a list of places I’d like to go but I probably won’t go without a tour. I’m probably past being able to do a gorilla trekking trip or that would be on that list.

Thanks so much to all of you for your input - lots of great ideas to research!

I've been on about 6 safaris in Southern Africa and went on my own, using a safari planner in CapeTown who is remarkable....this is her agency; we've done trips to SA, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and the area in Zambia near Livingstone/Victoria Falls. I am planning to book with her again next time....

https://www.southerndestinations.com